


a Steve and Dustin bro-ship drabble

by Confessions_of_a_Closet_Bibliophile



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: College, Gen, Good Babysitter Steve Harrington, Growing Up, and anxiety due to those, teen rating for slight profanity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 23:23:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18648220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Confessions_of_a_Closet_Bibliophile/pseuds/Confessions_of_a_Closet_Bibliophile
Summary: “I'm not at all ready to go to college. I can't be an adult! I'm not responsible!” Dustin flaps his hands demonstratively.Steve gives him a look. “Dustin, if you're not ready, no one is. God knows you're the only one in your little group of idiots with any common sense.”-Dustin has been freaking out about college. Steve helps.-





	a Steve and Dustin bro-ship drabble

**Author's Note:**

> Basically, the season three trailer that gave us all another glimpse of awesome bros!Steve and Dustin made me think of this. It's pretty introspective, based on my inability to be satisfied with my own dialogue and what I imagine the inside of Dustin's 18-year old mind to be. Might be a bit ooc, but I'm justifying it since it's, like, five years in the future.

“I'm not at all ready to go to college. I can't be an adult! I'm not responsible!” Dustin flaps his hands demonstratively.

Steve gives him a look. “Dustin, if you're not ready, no one is. God knows you're the only one in your little group of idiots with any common sense.”

Dustin’s totally not ignoring Steve- because Steve is awesome and never makes Dustin feel invalidated- but he’s wrong. He's been holding it in for weeks, smiling weakly when his mom starts getting weepy about her “little baby boy going off to college” and not freaking the fuck out loud enough for anyone to notice. Not that anyone would notice. Mike forgets that anyone but El and Will exist- and they're still doing that weird thing where they orbit around each other and don't talk about it and pretend that they're not going to end up in a big happy poly relationship. Dustin’s just going to sit back and be very supportive once they finally get their shit together. Lucas and Max are cool, but they're not the most observant people in the world. El’s whole world isn't just Mike and Chief anymore, but it’s still hard for her some days, trying to learn all the things that she should already know but doesn't because she was kidnapped by a shadowy research facility and raised by a psycho pseudo-dad. So Dustin’s not adding any more to that dumpster fire. And Dustin’s pretty sure Will’s still in the throes of his sexuality crisis, so he’s absolutely no help.

Which leaves him here, sitting with Steve as his de facto shrink, on the shore of the lake where Dustin had thought Will died, so long ago. 

He’s never gotten used to how Steve’s such a decent person. It's kind of crazy, the way he hangs with Dustin like it's not weird for a twenty-something year old with a stable job as a nurse to be best friends with a loser high schooler. Sometimes it blows Dustin’s mind, if he thinks about all the ways that Steve has become more than a friend almost, basically a part of the little atypical Henderson clan, coming by for family dinner whenever he’s not working three consecutive twelve-hour shifts. He’s gotten accustomed to looking after himself, has had to when his mom’s at work and there's no older brother or sister making sure Dustin doesn't get killed doing stupid shit. And Dustin does a lot of stupid shit. It's just…nice. Well, nice doesn't at all cover it. But it's. Dustin appreciates everything Steve’s done since Dustin derailed his plans and dragged him into the whole interdimensional mess. And the way that Steve stuck around afterward.

It all comes out in a flood. 

“What if I can't learn fast enough? And my grades drop and they kick me out? I'm not equipped for this! I spend all my time making new D&D characters and trying to convince my mom to let me have an axolotl. I don't know how to make food happen or get to class on time or make friends. I was almost suspended last year because I couldn't wake myself up like a functional human being!” 

Dustin’s somehow going to Rutgers on a combination of academic scholarships and maybe divine intervention, and he's so goddamn terrified that he won't make it. That somehow he’ll fuck it up and his mom will be disappointed and he’ll end up working at a McDonalds for minimum wage. He never realized it when he was younger, but behind the perpetually enthusiastic and often emotional...state of being that his mom embodies, she’s a working single mom, exhausted, just better at hiding it than Mama Bryer. Dustin  _ needs _ to make it. So much so that sometimes it's all he can think about, and suddenly he’s curled on the floor of his room, clutching his rosary hard enough to leave marks. 

Like, yeah, he wants to be an engineer and build planes for the Air Force. But he’s having a hard time actually believing that it'll ever happen. 

He slumps into Steve’s side, solid and comforting. “I'm scared, Steve. I don't think I can do it.” 

It's worse because he’s the only one going away. All of his friends, the whole Party, is staying in-state. Will and Mike are rooming together, for God’s sake. Even Max, who everyone thought would end up in California, is only going as far as Bloomington. 

Dustin hadn't planned to go to Jersey. He honestly thought that he would stay at home, go to the local community college for a couple of years, then transfer to a nearby four-year. This was the farthest thing from what he expected, and he’s somehow blindsided by it all, despite the fact that he mailed in his student deposit months ago. 

Steve settles his hand at the nape of Dustin’s neck, squeezes gently. Dustin feels all the tension go out of him, and he molds himself further into Steve’s rib cage. He kind of wants to crawl inside and never come out. 

“Alright, so I'm going to say something now, and you’re going to listen, yeah?” Steve says. Dustin headbutts him lightly in lieu of verbal response. 

“You're the smartest kid I know. I'm not saying this just so you feel better, even though I'm probably biased. But you are. There’s stuff you understand and that fascinates you that I wouldn't be able to get in a million years. I'm not putting myself down,” he adds when Dustin makes a protesting noise and an aborted attempt to sit up. “It's just true. Okay?” Steve pets him a little so he’ll settle back down. It's blatant manipulation, and Dustin doesn't even care. “You’re not going to fail, and you know why? I know you're going to make it because you want it. Bad.” He scrunches his fingers gently in Dustin’s curls, releases. “So I know you’ll do whatever you need to.” 

Steve's really sweet and buoying pep talk doesn't completely take away Dustin’s fear. He’ll probably still lie awake at night, staring at a ceiling that he can't see, wondering about a life he hasn't lived. But he’s never needed to be unafraid. He’s got Steve for that. 


End file.
